Once available only to large companies with big budgets, video conferencing has become a preferred method of collaboration among start-ups, mid-enterprises, and even government agencies.
As video conferencing continues its rise in popularity beyond the corporate landscape, here’s a brief look at how other industries are taking advantage of the flexibility and convenience that comes along with video conferencing.
Healthcare
Healthcare is a dynamic, continuously evolving industry. Adding video collaboration has become an increasingly popular way of improving communication among practitioners, patients, and research professionals alike.
In particular, video conferencing is the foundation for emerging telemedicine services, enabling patients and physicians to communicate in real-time no matter their location and helping to reduce unnecessary and costly hospitalizations. At the same time, video conferencing creates new ways for physicians, nurses, and students to learn through distance courses and specialty online workshops or seminars.
Video platforms also extend healthcare opportunities to underserved or difficult-to-reach populations, such as delivering in-home care to elderly and/or immobile patients, using real-time video care to connect primary care practitioners and specialists in the patient’s home to approximate the level of care and coordination of a traditional facility.
As video platforms continue to evolve, so too will the health industry’s ability to overcome persistent challenges in delivering superior patient care to larger audiences.
Human Resources
Human Resources (HR) has been among the biggest beneficiaries of the continued expansion of video conferencing. Video collaboration has dramatically changed employee recruitment, training, and retention by eliminating time and distance barriers that previously made these functions more difficult.
Specifically, video conferencing can help shorten employee recruitment, hiring, and onboarding processes by enabling video interviews, offers, and initial training that allows hiring managers and candidates to meet virtually at their mutual convenience.
Ongoing employee training-- for new hires and existing resources alike--can be a costly and time-consuming task for an organization. Video conferencing helps companies deliver interactive training with the same in-person learning experience, but without the travel. Many organizations have seen demonstrably better engagement and results from new employees engaged in distance training. At the same time, live remote training also offers a better way to keep current employees updated on the fast-moving changes of the modern business world. There’s no need to continually update expensive corporate training videos, as on-demand training sessions can quickly be added to the calendar for employees to attend from the comfort of their home offices.
Legal
Few industries depend on communication and collaboration quite like the legal system. Video conferencing has modernized interactions among judges, court officials, and law firms to accelerate traditionally slower stages of legal proceedings and help justice be served faster.
Video conferencing allows discovery sessions, depositions, and even witness testimony to be conducted virtually, sparing participants from having to take time off from work to appear in court in person without sacrificing the integrity of the process. Legal teams can interview potential jurors, engage with subject matter experts around the globe, and consult with partners and co-counsel to prepare their cases--all without leaving the office.
Adopting video collaboration provides more benefits than just saving time. Many money-starved state and local governments look to budget-friendly video conference technologies to reduce the cost of operating courtrooms and conducting jurisprudence, as some courthouses across the country have saved more than $3 million dollars in operating expenses in the last several years.
Video conferencing continues to demonstrate utility and value beyond the conventional corporate sales meeting and customer engagement practices. Now, organizations of all sizes, across various industries, and with limited resources can improve collaboration, communication, and learning while also reducing business expenses.